Problems with bills and utilities, difficulties with leases, disruptions with trains and planes. Very often our students, living away from home, find themselves facing difficult situations without knowing who to turn to.

The new column ‘StudentSOS’, the result of the collaboration between Confconsumatori (a nationwide consumer association) and the student-run online magazine ParmAteneo, aims to provide answers to the most frequent doubts and inconveniences encountered by students.

ParmAteneo is an online weekly magazine for students of the University of Parma managed by the journalistic laboratory of CAPAS, the Center for the Activities and Professions of the Arts and Performing Arts.

On ParmAteneo, readers will be able to find different topics every week, with answers from lawyers and experts from Confconsumatori Parma. The distinctive elements of each column will be usefulness and immediacy: clear, simple and direct answers to everyday problems, which may appear insurmountable due to a lack of information.

In-depth topics tackled will include contracts (water, electricity and gas), waste tax (TARI), telephone and internet contracts. We will also talk about purchases and guarantees, disputes between tenants and landlords,

Transport disruptions and, again, reports of unfair commercial behaviour and online scams; the latter issue to which Confconsumatori is paying increasing attention, in the light of the exponential increase in digital fraud in recent times.

Anyone wishing to explore one or more topics will thus have a direct channel through which to get in touch with the association, which has its national headquarters in Parma.

The new column confirms and consolidates the relationship between Confconsumatori and the University of Parma, sanctioned in 2021 by the signing of a framework agreement which provides for the sharing of initiatives aimed at informing, promoting and providing training for the active participation of citizens.

All readers, and in particular the student community, are invited to send in their questions, which may become the subject of the column. Contact the editorial staff directly (email: parmateneo.unipr@gmail.com) or write to the Confconsumatori Press Office (email: ufficiostampa@confconsumatori.it).